Shoot for the Stars
by NightingaleTear
Summary: Jacinda Runyan and Mayra Navarro are two young girls dreaming of a life in Starfleet. Can they help each other make that dream come true? What kind of sacrifices will they have to make to follow in the footsteps of Starfleet's greatest captains? A story about love and friendship among the stars. Will include characters from TNG and Voyager.
1. The New Girl

**A/N: This story starts in the year 2365 in the TNG timeline (near the end of season three). There will be appearances of TNG and Voyager characters and later on, some references to events from the Star Trek books that depict what happened after Nemesis and Endgame. But the main focus is on two characters of my own invention, so no worries if you haven't read the books.**

* * *

 **Part I:** **Birth of a Star**

 **1\. The New Girl**

She hated real food.

Or maybe she only hated the kind of food her mother cooked – or tried to cook. She wasn't very good at it, but every now and then she insisted on being 'domestic'. Whatever that meant.

Her mother was good with words. She was a holo-novel author, so her whole world consisted of words and characters and plot twists. Anything else was just in the way.

Like being a mom.

Or managing a household.

"Jacinda?"

The only thing she hated more than real food was her given name.

"Aren't you hungry, dear?"

Jacinda eyed the squishy food on her plate. "I like replicated eggs better."

Her mother sighed. "I know you do. But I thought you might appreciate it if I took the time to cook you breakfast myself."

"Maybe I would if you could actually cook."

There was a short pause before her mother burst out laughing. "Oh honey, you're becoming more like your father every day. He was too honest for his own good, too."

Jacinda looked up in surprise. "Honesty is not a bad thing."

"That is very wise and very Betazoid of you to say."

"I'm not Betazoid," Jacinda muttered. Technically, she was half Betazoid and half human. So she was really neither.

"What you are is late for school if you don't eat up," her mother said.

Reluctantly, Jacinda took a spoonful of the runny eggs. "Do I have to?" she asked after swallowing slowly.

"Of course not," her mother said and smiled, even though she was sad and more than a little disappointed that her breakfast adventure hadn't turned out the way she had hoped.

Jacinda hated that. More often than not, her mother's smiles were lies rather than truths. Of course, if Jacinda had been human like her mother, she wouldn't have known that. But since her father had been Betazoid, Jacinda knew that smiles were rarely to be trusted. Nevertheless, she really didn't want to eat those eggs, so she took her mother by her word and got up from the table.

"Shall I walk you to the transporters?" her mother offered.

"I thought your agent was coming over," Jacinda reminded her.

Her mother jumped to her feet. "Right! I almost forgot! He's going to love my latest cliffhanger. I'll walk you tomorrow, okay?"

"I'm twelve. You don't have to walk me…" But her mother wasn't listening to her anymore. She was full of excitement and a true kind of laughter, which could only mean that she was thinking about her novel.

"All right, love you, honey." Her mother kissed her on the head and sped off.

That one wasn't a lie at least, but it wasn't the whole truth either. She loved the holodeck more.

"Bye, Mom."

Jacinda left their apartment and joined the usual crowd of people on their way to the nearest public transporter. There were other kids who dreaded having to go to school, adults who dreaded having to go to work, adults who were excited to be going to work, and lots of adults who were too preoccupied with their personal lives to care about work. Jacinda didn't pay attention to any of them. It was easier that way. All of their hopes and dreams and fears and plans and whatever else they might be feeling just became a constant background noise.

The only person Jacinda paid attention to was the admiral. Well, she wasn't a real admiral. Admirals weren't in the habit of using public transporters. But this woman was a Starfleet officer, and apparently, she lived in the area because she used this particular transporter every morning, and she always had a padd in her hand. Like Jacinda, she never paid attention to anyone else, just her padd. She had a kind of concentration and laser focus about her that had Jacinda convinced that this woman would make it to admiral one day.

She envied her.

But for now, Jacinda had to go to school. The admiral would probably be the first person to tell her how important school was. It just didn't feel that way to Jacinda.

When she arrived at her school and walked up to the entrance, she continued to ignore the usual mix of emotions from the other kids – worry about homework, worry about grades, worry about a crush they had, about their popularity, about having no friends, about not being good at Hoverball, and a million other things that had nothing to do with learning. Despite all that worry going around, most of the kids were smiling and talking about the weekend as if that made everything okay.

A new voice surprised Jacinda by breaking through the shield she had erected between herself and her classmates. There were no words per se, just the sound of laughter, and it surprised her because it came from somewhere above her head – from somewhere in the trees. But when Jacinda looked up, she only caught the shadow of something that must have been jumping from treetop to treetop and was now already gone. It must have been some kind of human being, though, because the laughter had been accompanied by a trace of joy. And Jacinda couldn't sense the emotions of animals.

She really liked animals.

The bell rang (their principal loved 'the good old days' as he called it and had reinstated the old Earthen custom of ringing a bell to signal the beginning and ending of individual periods), and Jacinda hurried to get inside.

Class was slow. They had been talking about Zefram Cochrane's first warp flight for weeks now, and Jacinda already knew all about it. Well, she knew about Cochrane's life and about the first contact with the Vulcans, how the warp drive actually worked – not so much.

When it was time for lunch, Jacinda stayed behind for a moment to check the newsfeed on her learning terminal. The Federation had just successfully established political relations with the Legaran. The negotiations had been led by none other than Ambassador Sarek. But the famous Vulcan, who was over 200 years old, apparently suffered from something called Bendii syndrome and had only been able to overcome the symptoms thanks to a mind meld with Captain Picard of the _USS Enterprise._ Jacinda shuddered at the thought of a mind meld. She couldn't imagine baring her soul to someone like that.

Her train of thought was interrupted not by her growling stomach, but by a strong mix of emotions nearby – insecurity, fear, and the need for dominance – a typical bullying situation. Jacinda sighed. She usually kept her head down and pretended not to notice. Just because she couldn't help sensing these things, she couldn't be expected to get involved, now could she? If she reacted to every hurtful emotion that came her way, she would never stop. Plus, she was old enough to know that humans rarely thanked her for pointing out their feelings. Apparently, it was everybody's favorite pastime to hide their true selves.

But for some reason, Jacinda left the classroom and decided to investigate.

Just this once.

As expected, she found three boys from one of her classes, who had cornered a lonely girl, who must have been new in school and gotten lost on her way to lunch. The girl, however, was a surprise. She looked to be of Jacinda's age, even though she was smaller than Jacinda, who had always been too tall and too lanky for her age. The new girl had red hair that fell to her shoulders, but more importantly, she had two reddish-brown cat-like ears as well as a reddish-brown tail and gleaming cat-like eyes that were bright green.

"What kind of freak are you?" the human boy named Jones asked while the others laughed. It was obvious that the girl's unusual appearance had drawn them to her.

"Yeah, was your mother assaulted by her cat?" his friend Riley sneered, and they all snickered, pretending to be greatly amused by this when they were secretly a little scared.

As they should be. This girl was not half human, half cat, of course. One of her parents must have been a Lamar – a humanoid species with feline features like the fur and the tail as well as the claws and teeth, which made them ferocious fighters if they wanted to be. But this girl was predominantly human and not at all aggressive. She wasn't even all that afraid. Mostly, she seemed curious, somewhat confused, and a little sad.

"I think the only mother who was assaulted must have been yours because you're too dumb to recognize a Lamar when you see one," Jacinda decided to speak up.

The three boys winced, but their surprise quickly faded when they saw that it was just her and not a teacher. "Move along, mind reader. Nobody asked for your opinion. You always cheat anyway."

Jacinda huffed in exasperation. No matter how often she explained that she was in fact _not_ a mind reader because she was only half Betazoid, it made no difference whatsoever. The other kids still didn't trust her, didn't trust their secrets to be safe around her.

"I think Mr. Calor would be very interested in my opinion of what's going on," she said.

"Why? We were just talking to the new girl!"

"Oh, sure. And you were also just accidentally copying Seril's answers on that Vulcan history test last week."

Jones paled visibly, clearly taking her words as a threat that she would rat him out. He quickly decided that the new girl wasn't worth that much trouble. "Stupid Betazoid!" he muttered under his breath before he turned and left, his friends following him.

This incident wouldn't exactly help her prove that she couldn't read minds. He would never believe that Jacinda hadn't read his thoughts, but that his feelings of guilt and exhilaration when they had gotten their test results back had told her all she needed to know. But it didn't matter. She wouldn't want to be friends with them anyway.

"Are you okay?"

Jacinda blinked in surprise when the new girl suddenly spoke for the first time. "Why wouldn't I be? They were bothering you, not me," she replied.

The girl cocked her head. "But they called you stupid and a cheater."

"They said worse things to you." Jacinda shrugged.

"It's the tail. It throws people off," the girl said surprisingly cheerful and wiggled said tail.

"Uh, I can imagine," Jacinda said and turned around to finally go and have lunch.

The girl followed her. "My name is Mayra."

"Jacinda."

"Oh, that's a pretty name!" Mayra gushed.

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

Jacinda looked at her irritably. She had often been told that her name was pretty, but those were just empty words people felt they needed to say when they were confronted with an unusual name. They didn't realize how stupid it was to compliment a Betazoid when you didn't actually mean it. To Jacinda's surprise, she couldn't detect any insincerity in Mayra's words. It threw her off more than the tail did.

"Why are you following me?" she asked her.

"You're going to have lunch now, aren't you?" Mayra asked in return.

"Yes!?"

"What a coincidence! So am I." Mayra smiled at her, and when she did so, she revealed two sharp canines.

Jacinda wanted to tell her to stop mocking her, but she wasn't. As far as Jacinda could tell, Mayra really was happy to have lunch and to have company. Her happiness suddenly reminded Jacinda of this morning. "Do you like to climb trees by any chance?"

"Oh, I love it!" Another smile, another truth. "It's really easy, too. Well, if you have a tail, that is."

"You should probably learn to defend yourself rather than climb trees," Jacinda suggested.

"Why?"

"Because if you look like a Lamar, but won't fight like a Lamar, then you'll get into trouble."

Mayra's ears twitched. "And what if you look like a Betazoid, but don't want to use your gift, then what does that make you?"

"It's not a gift, and it's certainly none of your business!" Jacinda hissed, cursing her pitch-black eyes and dark hair that betrayed her not quite human heritage.

"You're not very nice for a Betazoid," Mayra stated matter-of-factly.

"And you're not very impressive for a Lamar," Jacinda shot back.

"Then I guess we're both failures," Mayra said and shrugged as if there was nothing to be done about that.

Jacinda tried to suppress her surprise, but people weren't usually this honest. "Is that why you changed schools?"

"No, this school has a better advanced science program. My old teachers said that I've become too smart for them." Surprisingly, she wasn't bragging. She was just telling the truth.

"Sounds like you're anything but a failure," Jacinda said.

"Sounds like you can be nice after all," Mayra replied.

Jacinda rolled her eyes but hid a smile when she entered the cafeteria.

* * *

 **A/N: Just getting started here… And in case you were wondering, the Lamar are not canon. I thought it would be more fun to make them up.**


	2. The Promise

**2\. The Promise**

For the first time in weeks, Jacinda was excited about school. Of course, they weren't actually in school today. They were on a field trip to San Francisco, which happened to be Jacinda's favorite place on Earth. Not because she wanted to ride an antique cable car, see Fisherman's Wharf or visit some famous museum, but because of the one building you could see from almost anywhere in the city – Starfleet Academy.

Unfortunately, it was also the only building that wasn't on their agenda today. Jacinda had tried to convince their teacher otherwise, but Mr. Calor had argued that they were still a little too young. They were going to visit the academy when it was time for them to choose a career. Never mind that Jacinda had already decided.

Thankfully, Jacinda also had a plan. They were a really big group of kids since several classes had come along on this field trip. No one would notice if she disappeared while they were supposed to be in the museum – as long as she was back by the time they would regroup outside.

As soon as the teachers turned their backs on them, Jacinda ran straight out of the museum. Once she was out of sight, she pressed her back against the museum wall and waited to see if she had been spotted and if someone was following her.

"What are you doing?"

Jacinda yelped in shock. Mayra was hanging upside down from a nearby tree, her tail wrapped around one of the branches.

"Having a heart attack," Jacinda muttered angrily, still clutching her chest, afraid that her heart might jump out at her.

Mayra swayed merrily back and forth. "Thanks to modern medicine, there are hardly any more heart attacks."

"How would you know? Are you going to be a doctor?"

"No. Are you going to get into trouble?" Mayra asked lightly.

"Not if you don't tell." She was wasting time, just standing here and arguing. Jacinda decided that the risk of discovery was greater than the risk of the new girl ratting her out, so she turned and left.

She heard Mayra drop down from the tree, and then her soft footsteps were right behind her. "I won't," she said.

"What?"

"I won't tell."

"Okay," Jacinda said, trying not to show her relief. "Thanks." She meant it as a dismissal, but Mayra stayed by her side. "What are you doing?"

"The same thing you're doing, I imagine."

"Why? You don't even know where I'm going."

Mayra simply smiled at her. "Wherever it is, I'm sure it's going to be more exciting than where we're running from."

Again, Jacinda had no time to argue and headed for the nearest transporter. "You don't owe me anything, you know," she said while they waited their turn. "For helping you on your first day. I was just being…"

"Kind?" Mayra helped her out.

"No… yeah, I guess." Jacinda shrugged. "But it didn't mean anything."

Mayra's face fell, but she recovered quickly. "It meant something to me," she said before it was their turn to step on the transporter platform.

They rematerialized right in front of the entrance to the main academy building. Jacinda stepped off the platform in awe. She was finally here in person! People of all ages, sizes, genders, and species in many different uniforms walked past them, all looking terribly important and powerful to Jacinda, even though she caught the occasional cadet with a strong fear of missing some kind of deadline. Even so, they were studying to go into space, to become officers and explorers, and to represent the entirety of the Federation to the rest of the universe.

"See, I told you, way more exciting," Mayra said.

Jacinda had almost forgotten she was there. "Have you been here before?" she asked, looking at her in surprise.

"No, but it looks exciting, doesn't it? Great tree climbing opportunities." Mayra was eyeing the beautiful academy gardens.

"Yeah, you go do that," Jacinda snorted. "I have somewhere else to be."

"And where's that?"

Jacinda showed her the padd she had brought along with the announcement of a presentation Captain Jean-Luc Picard was scheduled to give in five minutes. It was mere coincidence that an event like that coincided with their field trip to San Francisco, but to Jacinda it felt like fate. Not only had she made it to the academy, she was also going to meet a real Starfleet captain. Technically, she would only hear him speak, but he wasn't just any captain either. He was captain of the _Enterprise_.

At this point, Jacinda wasn't even surprised anymore that Mayra kept following her. "She's a real beauty," the Lamar girl said.

"Who?" Jacinda looked around for some particularly beautiful officer.

Mayra laughed. "The _Enterprise_ , of course, you dummy."

Before Jacinda could respond, she spotted two security officers who flanked the double doors leading into the conference room where everybody was gathering for the presentation. While the two officers didn't seem to pay too much attention to the people who entered the room, Jacinda got the feeling that two twelve-year-olds – who were the only kids around – might stand out.

She cursed under her breath. She hadn't thought there'd be security. Nobody else seemed to care about them, but it wasn't their job to care. Those two officers at the door had literally nothing else to do.

"They don't look very friendly," Mayra said, following her gaze.

"Do Lamar always point out the obvious?" Jacinda hissed, allowing her disappointment to lash out.

Mayra took it in stride. "Do Betazoids always give up that easily?"

"I have no idea what Betazoids do or don't do, I've never been…" Jacinda paused. "What exactly are you saying?"

"Every room has more than one point of entry – unless it's the brig, of course," Mayra said and held out a hand.

Jacinda hesitated, but all she could feel from the Lamar girl was excitement and determination, and underneath that hope – the kind of hope that hurt terribly when it was crushed. Quickly, Jacinda took her hand. She noticed that Mayra had very sharp fingers, not quite claws yet, but something in between. She was careful not to hurt Jacinda, though.

Instead, Mayra started to run. She weaved her way through the latecomers, who were still heading for the conference room, and chose a path, leading them from one corridor to the next without any apparent difficulty. Jacinda tried her best to keep up and to not trip over her own feet. Letting go was not an option because Mayra's grip on her hand was strong. She was part Lamar after all.

Finally, they stopped in an empty hallway, and Mayra pointed to a hatch above their heads. "A Jefferies tube?" Jacinda guessed. That was a pretty clever idea if not for one problem. "How do you know it leads to the conference room?"

Mayra merely shrugged.

Jacinda sighed. It wasn't as if they had any other options. "Why is it all the way up there?" she wondered, standing on her toes and still failing to reach.

"So that no one uses it to sneak into the conference room?" Mayra suggested. "Good thing you're so tall," she added with a smirk.

"Fine, I hope you didn't have a baby duck for breakfast," Jacinda muttered and held out her hands to hoist Mayra onto her shoulders.

Mayra whisked her tail across Jacinda's face. "I don't eat baby ducks. Hold still!"

"Get your tail out of my face!"

"The hatch is locked."

"Duck or no duck, you're heavier than you look."

"That's not a very nice thing to say."

"It doesn't have to be nice if it's the truth."

"You can say the truth and still be nice."

"Good to know. But can you open that hatch or not?"

There was a scratching sound, and then Jacinda could hear the pressure of the locked hatch release. Mayra gave her one last kick and scrambled upwards into the now open tube.

"What now?" Jacinda asked because there was no one to hoist her up there, too.

Mayra dangled her tail out of the tube opening. "Grab my tail," she instructed her as if that was a perfectly normal thing to say.

"What? No! You can't hold me!" Jacinda protested.

"Yes, I can. There's a handle here that I'm holding on to. It's fine."

"No, it's not! I'll pull out your tail or something."

Mayra's tail twitched impatiently. "You do know how strong Lamar are, don't you?"

"But you're only half Lamar!" Jacinda reminded her.

"Tell that to my fully Lamar tail or the boys from class who think I'm a freak," Mayra insisted. "You want to hear Captain Picard speak or not?"

Jacinda suppressed her frustration and grabbed Mayra's tail. When she started climbing, she braced herself for feeling Mayra's inevitable pain, but it never came. When they were both sitting inside the Jefferies tube, Jacinda was breathing heavier than Mayra did.

"That's one crazy tail you've got there," Jacinda wheezed.

"Says the girl who has other people's feelings stuck in her brain," Mayra replied.

Jacinda grimaced. "Point taken."

They started crawling through the Jefferies tube, and Jacinda's heart soared when she could hear a muffled voice guiding them towards the conference room. When they reached another hatch, Jacinda looked at Mayra. She nodded, and together they opened the hatch as quietly as they possibly could.

At once, the muffled sounds became the strong voice of Captain Picard. He stood in front of an audience that listened with rapt attention as the captain spoke of the biggest threat to the Federation or possibly the entire universe – the Borg.

Jacinda still thought it was a funny name for such a formidable enemy. Thankfully, everyone was so shocked by Picard's report on how exactly the Borg had assimilated him that no one seemed to notice how the two girls climbed out of the Jefferies tube and quietly sat on the stairs to listen.

As always, Jacinda was forced to listen to more than just the words that were being said. The entire room was filled to the brim with the intense emotions of the audience, so intense that it almost split her head in two.

"What's it like?" Mayra whispered next to her, almost as if she was the empath and not Jacinda. "Feeling what everybody else is feeling?"

The problem with sensing other people's emotions was that it didn't always leave enough room for your own, so Jacinda sidestepped the question. "They are scared but also strangely excited. And the captain is the bravest of them all," she shared what she couldn't escape from anyway.

"Why?"

"He's scared, too, terrified, actually. That assimilation destroyed a piece of his soul. And yet, all he wants to do is to get back out there and discover more about the Borg and any other species that might become an ally in our fight against them."

"That is a very astute observation, young lady."

Jacinda winced in shock and turned around, convinced she would look into the eyes of the two security officers, who had found them after all. Instead, she was facing two female officers, who seemed rather intrigued by their presence here.

"You're definitely too young to be cadets," said the second woman, who was either a science or a medical officer. "Are you here with your parents?"

For once, Jacinda was tempted to lie. The conference room was so packed with people, they would never know the truth. But the woman who had spoken first was still looking intently at Jacinda, and her eyes were just as pitch-black as her own. She hadn't tried to make telepathic contact, but she was clearly a Betazoid, and so lying was definitely out.

Suddenly Jacinda understood why other people were always so annoyed with her.

"No, we're here for a school field trip," she answered vaguely but truthfully.

The two adults exchanged a look that seemed to fill in everything Jacinda had left unsaid.

"I'll better take them back," the woman with the red hair decided. "Will you stay with him?" she asked the Betazoid and nodded in the direction of Captain Picard, who was still speaking.

"You know he'll get sick of my constant hovering eventually," the Betazoid said.

"As if anyone could ever get sick of you." The two women shared a smile that spoke of true friendship, and suddenly Jacinda realized who they were and who they were serving with. So she didn't even think to protest when the doctor proceeded to usher her and Mayra out of the room.

"That is quite enough talk of the Borg if you ask me," she said once they were outside. "Now, my name is Beverly. Who might you two be?"

"I'm Mayra," her companion answered right away and left Jacinda with no choice but to volunteer her own name as well.

"All right, Mayra, Jacinda, you don't mind if we take a slight detour, do you?" The doctor winked at them.

The girls exchanged a look and quickly shook their heads.

Beverly chuckled. "That's what I thought. Come on then, you two."

She led them deeper into the academy building. Jacinda's eyes were wide open, and she didn't even know where to look first. She wanted to commit everything to memory. So she would be prepared when she came back here one day.

"What was so boring about that field trip of yours that you decided to come here instead?" Beverly asked. She sounded amused and not at all as if she intended to rat them out to their teachers, so Jacinda thought it safe to answer.

"It simply wasn't as exciting as seeing the academy," she said.

"I take it you want to join as soon as you're allowed?"

Jacinda nodded vigorously.

Beverly smiled at her, but it was a cautious smile. "Are you sure? There are lots of other exciting things you could do – and safer ones at that."

"I don't want to be safe. I want to be a Starfleet captain." Jacinda blushed. She had never said that out loud before. "Or at least I want to be somewhere out there," she amended. She didn't want the CMO of Starfleet's flagship to think that she was arrogant.

But the elder woman only laughed – not in a mean way, more in recognition, and perhaps to cover up the sadness she felt when she was reminded of Captain Picard's recent assimilation. "You already sound like a certain other Starfleet captain I know."

Jacinda's heart soared, and she almost missed how Beverly turned to Mayra. "And what about you? Will you at least go easier on your parents?"

"My father is in Starfleet, too," she replied.

"He is?" Jacinda almost stopped in surprise. "Why didn't you say something?"

"You didn't ask."

Beverly looked from one to the other and seemed to be talking to herself more than them when she said, "Oh well, parents who are in Starfleet but try to keep their children out of Starfleet stand on only one leg."

Jacinda was sure that she was talking from personal experience, and somehow, she found the courage to ask, "Why wouldn't you want your children to join? Don't you believe in Starfleet?"

"Oh, I believe in our work, in helping others and protecting them, and most of all I believe in the people I'm serving with. But I also believe in the benefits of being able to sleep at night. And that is sometimes hard to come by on a starship."

Jacinda understood what Beverly was saying, that she was trying to warn them about the dangers that kept her up at night. But her words were overpowered by her underlying pride and passion. Clearly, the doctor would never choose a different profession.

"Anyway, I have to make a stop if that's all right with you?"

The girls didn't protest, and so Beverly led them out of the main building of the academy and into an adjacent building that according to the emblem above the door had to be Starfleet Medical. Sure enough, they entered a huge, state-of-the-art laboratory.

"Wait here. I'll try not to be too long." Beverly grabbed a couple of tricorders. "Have you ever used one of these? You can scan each other and everything else in here if you like, just don't touch anything, all right? Consider that your first official order as Starfleet officers-to-be."

They nodded, and Beverly left through a different door, probably leading into an office of some sort. Mayra didn't hesitate to open her tricorder. Her eyes lit up at the same time the screen did.

"Can you read anything with that?" Jacinda asked.

Mayra smiled and turned the tricorder on her. "I can see that… you no longer have an appendix."

"What?" Jacinda's hand instinctively went to her stomach.

"You've had surgery to remove it, haven't you?"

"Yes," Jacinda admitted surprised and a little creeped out, but her curiosity won out. She opened her own tricorder and was overwhelmed by the many readings she got. She probably had to narrow its focus to use it effectively, but it was a medical tricorder, so Jacinda figured she couldn't go wrong with pointing it at Mayra.

It took her a moment to make sense of the data. "Hey, you have an extra lung!"

Mayra laughed. "Yup, it's so I can do this." She did a series of backflips that landed her on one of the biobeds without being even a little bit out of breath.

Jacinda couldn't help but join her in her laughter. Then she walked over and sat down next to her. They both quieted down. Eventually, Jacinda said, "I'm sorry for saying that you're not impressive. I was wrong. I wouldn't have gotten into the conference room without you. How'd you know where to go?"

"I know my way around Starfleet blueprints," Mayra replied with a smile and a shrug.

Jacinda opened up her tricorder again. "Mhm, this thing doesn't say, but you're super smart, aren't you?"

"That depends on your definition of super smart. I doubt I would impress a Vulcan."

"Who likes Vulcans anyway?"

Mayra shrugged again. "I don't. They always put me to sleep."

Jacinda laughed. "Me too. And all their repressed emotions give me headaches."

"You really don't like being Betazoid very much, do you?" Mayra asked quietly.

She never talked about it. To anyone. Not even her mom. But Mayra looked so open and understanding and not the least bit judgmental. "I hate it," Jacinda whispered. She could barely hear her own words.

But Mayra had, and she gently reached out for her hand and squeezed it. Jacinda looked up at her in surprise. "I would like to have regular human hands," she said.

Jacinda looked at Mayra's half-human-half-claw-shaped fingers. "I like them. They make you look dangerous."

Mayra snickered. "Dangerous?"

"Yeah, if you're not hanging from a tree like a monkey, that is," Jacinda added, and they both giggled.

"Even if you don't like being Betazoid, it will help you get into the academy," Mayra said when they had calmed down.

Jacinda sat a little straighter. "You think so?"

"My father works in security because his Lamar strength, speed, and fighting prowess make him an asset. Your enhanced senses are an asset, too – one other people would love to have."

"Then they don't know what they wish for," Jacinda muttered, but Mayra's reasoning gave her hope. "Well, if I'm getting in, you're getting in, too. I mean, if you want to." She realized that Mayra had never actually answered that question when Beverly had asked her earlier.

The doors to the lab slid open, and Jacinda froze when the officer who entered was no other than Captain Picard himself. He seemed lost, but Jacinda knew who he was looking for. When Mayra gave her a gentle nudge, she managed to say, "Beverly… I mean, Dr. Crusher is in the back office." She pointed towards the right door.

Picard looked at them, surprised to see children here and not pleasantly so. But his manners won out over his apparent dislike. "Thank you…"

"Jacinda. Jacinda Runyan… and you're very welcome, Captain. And also, I think you're very brave… Sir."

The captain raised an eyebrow at her probably odd behavior, and his relief was almost palpable when Beverly returned to the lab now. "Are you ready to leave?" he asked her.

"Almost. I have to make sure these kids get back to their field trip," Beverly replied, reminding Jacinda that they might get into trouble after all. "You and Deanna go ahead. I hope you haven't run out on her?" she asked since the Betazoid was nowhere to be seen.

"I don't need a chaperone to walk a few hallways, Beverly," Picard huffed.

"How about a friend?" Beverly countered and put a soothing hand on his shoulder.

Picard mellowed under her touch. "All right, Deanna and I will return to the _Enterprise_. Just remember that we're scheduled to leave orbit at 1600 hours."

"I'll be there," she promised, which prompted the captain to leave.

Once the doors had closed behind him, Jacinda said, "He's worried you might want to stay."

"What?" Beverly turned around and looked as surprised as Jacinda felt.

She had no idea what had made her speak so brazenly about the famous captain. But now she could just as well continue. "Here at Starfleet Medical. He really wants you back on the _Enterprise_."

Beverly stared at her with a mixture of disbelief and amusement. Feeling a little brazen herself, she finally asked. "And why exactly is that?"

Jacinda shrugged. "He feels better when you're in the room with him."

The doctor blinked several times, storing that piece of information away for later, and then collected the tricorders she had given them. "Anyway, we still need to get you two back where you belong," she said sternly, but Jacinda could feel her smile while she ushered them out of the room.

When they got close to the transporter, Jacinda said, "You don't have to bring us all the way. We got here on our own. We know how to get back."

"I'm sure you do, but if my son had wandered off during a field trip, I would have wanted someone to make sure he got back safely."

"Does bringing us back safely include talking to our teachers?" Mayra joined Jacinda's efforts to keep them out of trouble.

Beverly stopped and looked at them. "Fine, I'll make you a deal. If you promise to hold hands, watch out for one another, and get straight back to the rest of your class, I will let you walk back on your own and won't say a thing."

The girls grabbed each other's hand so fast, Mayra's sharp fingers almost sliced Jacinda's palm open, but she didn't mind.

"Promise," they said simultaneously.

* * *

 **A/N: I hope you enjoyed getting to know the girls a little better and of course the first appearance of some familiar faces. Feedback is always greatly appreciated.**


	3. Chocolate Talks

**3\. Chocolate Talks**

It was a perfectly normal weekend. Jacinda sat in her room studying while her mom was off working on her new holo-novel. The publication date had been pushed up, so now she was spending every second rather than every minute on finishing it.

Or so Jacinda had thought until her mom suddenly appeared in her doorway. "Hey honey, what are you doing?"

"Studying." It came out a little more hostile than intended, but Jacinda could already feel that her mother was up to something.

"Oh, well, I think you deserve a break. Why don't we take a trip? To San Francisco, maybe? I know how you love to stare at the academy from afar."

Now that Jacinda had been inside the academy, that didn't sound as tempting as it once had. But there was always the chance that she could slip away again. Plus, she sensed that her mother wouldn't take no for an answer. She was definitely planning something, something that made her nervous, which didn't bode well for Jacinda.

But they did exactly as her mom had said. It was an extremely sunny day in San Francisco, so they walked across the Golden Gate Bridge because that's where one had the best view of the academy in Jacinda's opinion. They leaned against the railing and watched for a while.

"Don't you have to finish your novel?" Jacinda asked.

"Oh, there's more than enough time for that," her mom lied.

Jacinda gritted her teeth. "No, there's not. You're forcing yourself to spend time with me, but you don't have to."

Her mother pushed herself off the railing to look at her. "That is not true. I love to spend time with you, and even if I didn't, I very much have to because that's what mothers are supposed to do." They both stared at each other. "Okay, that sounded wrong. You know I love my job, but I love you more…"

"Maybe you should stop talking before you start lying again…" Jacinda muttered.

"Jacinda!" her mom scolded her. "If you really want to attend Starfleet Academy, you have to learn to treat people with more respect. The fact that you're privy to their feelings doesn't mean you have the right to confront them with that!"

"Then maybe you shouldn't have fallen in love with a Betazoid."

"You're right. Maybe I shouldn't have."

The ramifications of that statement hit them both at the same time. "Oh stars, that came out wrong again. Of course, I don't regret loving your father or having you, but I do regret that he's not here anymore to help you with this."

Jacinda frowned. "With what?"

"Honey, you have become very sullen, withdrawn, sometimes even hurtful lately, and I know it's because it's difficult for you to deal with your empathic abilities…"

"It's not my abilities, it's that everyone is constantly _lying!"_ Jacinda yelled.

Her mother tried to calm her down by putting her hands on her shoulders, but it had the opposite effect on Jacinda. It made her feel caged. "See, that sort of behavior is exactly what I mean. But it's okay, honey. There's a therapist here – a Betazoid actually – who can help you…"

"Therapy?" Jacinda interrupted her. This was worse than she could have ever imagined. "But I'm not sick! There's nothing wrong with me! I don't want to talk to anyone…"

"Well, honey, in a way you are making yourself sick because you're trying to fight who you are…"

That was too much. "How would you know? You have no idea who I am!" Jacinda pushed her mother away and ran as fast as she possibly could.

"Jacinda!"

She heard her mother's voice and her footsteps, but while Jacinda's legs were still a little shorter than her mom's, she knew the area around the academy better. She took a few shortcuts to shake her mother off, and then she hid to figure out a plan. Her time was already running out. Her mother wouldn't wait long to alert the authorities, and once they locked her out of the public transporters, Jacinda was done for. She had to get out of San Francisco right now. But where was she supposed to go?

There was only one place that came to mind. Unfortunately, she didn't know where it was. Quickly, Jacinda reached for her padd – ignoring the dozen messages from her mother – and accessed the public Starfleet database. She entered the last name of the officer she was looking for and found several officers named Navarro, but thankfully, the one she was looking for stood out like a sore thumb.

It said right there where he was stationed on Earth, but it took her a lot longer to find out where he lived. To her surprise, it was way up north in the Rocky Mountains. Jacinda hoped they had transporters there. With a twinge of sadness, she left her padd behind, so it couldn't be traced back to her.

She decided to err on the side of caution and not to go back to the nearest transporter in case her mother was waiting there. When she got to the next one and waited in line, her heart was hammering madly against her rib cage. Standing still felt like a mistake, as if any moment a hand would grab her from behind and lead her back to her mother. But she had to act normal, and normal people looked bored standing in line, not panicked. Jacinda could only hope that there was no other empath or telepath around.

The noisy Andorian family in front of her had finally made it onto the platform and disappeared to their next holiday destination. Jacinda quickly entered her own coordinates and held her breath. Being dematerialized had never felt so good.

Being rematerialized, however, had never felt so cold. Coming from sunny California and reemerging in a snow-covered town half hidden beneath the clouds was a shock to her system. Jacinda hurried to get onto the next public shuttle, but after only a short flight, it dropped her off in the middle of nowhere.

Or so it seemed. Jacinda had never seen so much snow. It covered everything. The trees, the lawn, the walkways. Nobody seemed to care or to bother shoveling it away. It looked as if the weather control system had malfunctioned. Or like people simply liked the snow up here. Jacinda would have liked it a lot more if it hadn't been so cold. She tried to make her way to the lonely house in the distance and was both wet and exhausted when she got there.

It looked like an old farmhouse. It even had an ancient front door with a doorknob and everything. Jacinda tried to twist the knob, but it was locked. She rang the doorbell, but nobody answered. She looked through one of the windows but saw no movement inside.

There was no one at home. So much for her great escape plan. She was cold and tired and alone. She didn't know what to do except to sit down on the porch, hug her knees to her chest, and cry because she was probably going to freeze to death out here.

The wood underneath her was moist, so sitting on the porch actually made the freezing worse, and the cold and the crying only increased her fatigue. Jacinda knew that was a bad combination, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

Until two wonderfully warm arms and a fuzzy tail suddenly wrapped around her, and she remembered how good it felt to be warm. She had just begun to relax when she suddenly hit her head. The arms around her had vanished, and she was now being pulled across the floor like an old doll. When she heard the front door open and realized she was being pulled inside the house, Jacinda didn't even bother to protest.

Eventually, the pulling stopped, and a blanket was dropped on top of her. A familiar face came into view.

"You're heavier than you look," Mayra said.

A smile broke through Jacinda's pain when she remembered those words. "That's not a very nice thing to say," she replied. Only that reminded her of the not so nice things her mother had said, and fresh tears sprang to her eyes. "I'm sorry for being a not quite human Popsicle on your porch," she hiccupped, "but I didn't know where else to go…"

Instead of answering, Mayra secured the blanket around her and then wrapped her arms around her again. Jacinda was surprised by how much she wanted to hug her back and how good it felt to hold someone and to be held in return. She cried a little more and then closed her eyes.

She must have fallen asleep because when Jacinda opened her eyes again, everything around her and outside the window was dark. For a brief moment, she thought about her mother and how frantic she had to be by now, but she pushed that worry aside for later. For now, she wanted to explore her surroundings. Mayra was gone, but there was a light on in the room next door, and feeling a lot braver than earlier, Jacinda entered it.

"Wow," she whispered and stopped right there in the doorway.

This room had only one theme – starships. They were everywhere. Small models, big models, blueprints, holograms, pictures, and even a lot of real stuff from hull pieces to plasma conduits. And smack dab in the middle of it all sat Mayra.

"Oh, hey! I would ask you how you're feeling, but I'm guessing you don't want to hear that word," Mayra greeted her.

"Good guess," Jacinda nodded, a little amazed that Mayra seemed to have a pretty good idea of what had happened. That didn't make her any more willing to talk about it, though. "So, you have a hobby, huh?" Jacinda stepped into the room and looked around more closely. "This collection looks a lot older than you are."

"That's because it's my mother's," Mayra explained.

"Ah, is she an engineer?" Jacinda asked, examining a fascinating hologram of the _USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A._

"She was. She designed new starships for Starfleet."

The past tense in that sentence made Jacinda turn around in shock, and the sadness and wistfulness coming from Mayra told her everything she needed to know. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "She sounds like a great mom."

"I wouldn't know. She died giving birth to me. But she was very, very smart. She laid the groundwork for the Galaxy-class ships." Mayra shook off her sadness faster than Jacinda had ever seen. It was replaced by a fierce pride that Mayra clearly felt for her mom, even though she had never met her.

"Your mom designed the _Enterprise D?_ No wonder you're a genius, too," Jacinda said, and felt a little satisfaction when her words brought a smile back to Mayra's face.

"A genius with two left feet for hands," she said, though, holding up her arms.

Suddenly, all the puzzle pieces she had learned about Mayra so far became a whole. "Because you want to be a Starfleet engineer as well – just like your mom." It made perfect sense that Mayra wanted to connect with her mother at least in that small way.

"I've been practicing to work around my claws ever since I could pick stuff up," Mayra nodded.

Jacinda sat down next to her. "What does your dad think?"

Mayra shrugged. "He's fine with Starfleet, of course, but he doesn't understand any of this. Lamar don't usually have the patience for it."

"Actually, I thought you wouldn't either," Jacinda admitted, picking up a small conduit and thinking of Mayra's preference for tree climbing.

"I love to sit here and build or fix stuff until I can't sit still anymore and have to go climb trees or run through the woods until I'm bored again and have to go back to fixing things. It's that simple."

It didn't sound simple to Jacinda, but it clearly made Mayra happy. "Then why don't you put my human hands to good use and tell me what to do with this?" She held up the thin plasma conduit that had to be really difficult for Mayra to handle.

"You don't have to do that," Mayra said and reached out to take the conduit from her.

But Jacinda wouldn't let go. "And you didn't have to let me in."

"Actually, I did because leaving you out in the cold would make me a terrible friend."

That one word thawed the rest of the ice that had taken hold of Jacinda's heart. "I don't usually cry, you know," she said quietly.

"I cry all the time when I miss my mom," Mayra admitted. "There's nothing wrong with it."

"Maybe, but I'm afraid that if I start crying, I might have to cry all the time, just because somebody else is sad."

"Does my sadness make you want to cry?" Mayra asked.

Jacinda shook her head. "No, but you're not really sad. You're grateful for everything your mom has given you and happy because you get to do what she loved and you know she'd be proud." When Mayra just smiled at her, Jacinda frowned. "What?"

"For someone who wants to get rid of other people's feelings you know them pretty well."

Jacinda shrugged. "It's easy when people are being honest."

"Unlike your parents?" Mayra ventured a guess.

"My mom," Jacinda clarified, and after a short pause, she confessed what had happened. "She tricked me into coming to San Francisco with her when she really wanted to force me to have therapy. She thinks there's something wrong with me because I'm not Betazoid enough or not human enough. But I'm just…"

"…you?" Mayra suggested.

"Yeah, but it feels like nobody wants me to be me."

"Then nobody is wrong."

It wasn't a solution to anything. But it made her feel better than she had in a long time because right now, right here she wasn't alone. "Can I stay here?" Jacinda asked timidly but full of hope.

Mayra beamed at her. "I thought you'd never ask."

"Good, then let me help you by doing something with this conduit or it'll stick to my hand forever."

They both laughed, and Mayra finally agreed to talk her through building a plasma coil. It was difficult but fun. Jacinda made a lot of mistakes at first, and at one point they both got a shock from the plasma conduit because of it. She was about to apologize when Mayra fell over in pretend pain and started giggling. Her laughter was infectious, and so Jacinda followed suit.

That's why neither one of them heard the footsteps approach before the man they belonged to came bursting through the door. "What's going on in here?"

The shock that jolted through Jacinda this time was fear – both Mayra's and her own. The man in the door could only be her father. He had the same green eyes with cat-like pupils and the same reddish-brown fur, only his covered not only his long tail but his entire body as far as one could tell despite the uniform he was wearing. His sharp canines and his fully formed claws were on full display, though. He was a Lamar, and he was meant to inspire fear in his prey.

"Who is that?" he asked, and Jacinda did feel like prey.

Mayra quickly jumped to her feet and stepped in front of her. "She's my friend," was all she said, but it was enough to remind Jacinda of her courage.

"What is she doing here in the middle of the night?" Mayra's father asked, and Jacinda stepped out from behind her friend's back to face him directly.

"I ran away," she said frankly because it was still the only way she knew how. "Mayra had to let me in to save me from the cold. None of this is her fault. It's mine. But my mother forced me to do it. So really, it's her fault."

The Lamar looked at her blankly, but Jacinda could tell that his instincts picked up on her sudden lack of fear, which marked her as a fellow predator rather than prey. "You can stay here until Monday. Then you'll go back to school and to your own home," he decided and left but not without accidentally stepping on one of the starship models.

Mayra sighed. Apparently, this had happened before. But Jacinda was too relieved to bemoan the fate of the little model. He was not contacting her mother, and he was not sending her back. It was almost too good to be true.

"That's my dad," Mayra said, looking apologetic.

"He's a little… scary," Jacinda had to admit.

"Not usually. He was just surprised because I never had a friend over before."

"Why not?"

Mayra shrugged. "Maybe I was waiting for you."

Jacinda smiled. It felt as if she could do nothing but smile now. "Well, friend, do you have a replicator in this house?" She was beginning to realize that she hadn't eaten all day.

"Of course, but I have to warn you. At this time of night, it only replicates stuff with chocolate in it," Mayra informed her.

"Why?" Jacinda asked, her eyebrows shooting up towards her hairline.

"Because I programmed it that way when I was six, and neither Dad nor I can figure out how to undo it."

"Seriously?"

"Oh, I would never make jokes about chocolate," Mayra said, and with a wink she led her into the kitchen.

They spent the rest of the night eating chocolate ice cream with a chocolate cake on the side.


	4. The Dream

**4\. The Dream**

"Open your present first!"

Jacinda took in all the birthday decorations in the kitchen as well as the rectangular package that sat on her plate and looked back at her mother. She seemed more excited about her daughter's birthday than Jacinda. She had been trying very hard ever since the day of their fight and Jacinda's escape to Mayra's. They had agreed on a deal of sorts afterwards. Therapy was off the table as long as Jacinda tried very hard to be more balanced. She had no idea what her mom thought that meant, but for Jacinda it meant that whenever she got frustrated with people or their feelings, she would call Mayra or imagine her voice in her head. It worked well enough for her mom and Jacinda to get along.

So she sat down now and opened her present. She hadn't expected much, but what was inside left her speechless. Two access passes for a VIP tour of the new Cumberland-class starship, the _USS Montgomery,_ that was currently still at Utopia Planitia but scheduled to leave on its maiden voyage within the month.

"I thought you might want to check out a real starship before you decide to spend the rest of your life on one," her mother said.

There was a hint of disapproval of her steadfast commitment to join Starfleet as soon as she was old enough, but Jacinda didn't care. No matter what her mother's intentions were, she had given her a trip to Mars. For once in her life, it was exactly what Jacinda wanted most.

She jumped to her feet and gave her mom a hug. "Thank you. I love it!" The hug was the best gift she could have given her mother in return, and since they were both happy right now, Jacinda dared to ask, "Can I take Mayra with me?"

Her mom was disappointed for only a second because she had expected as much. "Sure, I guess she should have the chance to see a starship as well before she's following you on your path."

"She's not following me, Mom. We're doing this together," Jacinda corrected her.

"Whatever you say, honey." Her mother didn't actually believe that she and Mayra would end up in Starfleet. She thought she knew more about what happened to childish dreams because she was all grown-up. She didn't know that Jacinda and Mayra weren't just dreaming.

They had a plan. It consisted of late-night studying, which they were both good at, training, which consisted of Jacinda setting difficult tasks for Mayra to solve with her fingers and Mayra pushing Jacinda to keep up with her on a run, and lots of chocolate to make up for all the hard work. But it would get them where they wanted to go.

And they would start with Mars.

A private shuttle was waiting to bring all the VIP guests to Utopia Planitia, and they were the only teens. Her mother had probably acquired the tickets via some contacts she'd made as a semi-successful holo-novel author. Jacinda didn't mind the looks she got from the other guests, and it was unusually easy for her to block out their emotions because she was anxiously waiting for Mayra to arrive.

Punctuality wasn't necessarily her thing because her free spirit didn't like random time constrictions, but she would never miss this opportunity.

In the end, Mayra was the last one to arrive, and she seemed uncharacteristically out of breath when she dropped into the empty seat next to Jacinda.

"Where have you been? Scratch that. What's wrong?" Lately, she had worked very hard on being "respectful" as her mother called it by not simply blurting out what her Betazoid senses insisted on telling her. But Mayra was different. Mayra didn't have any secrets.

"Nothing yet. We're here to enjoy ourselves, right?" she said and pushed whatever had caused her to be late aside to make room for the excitement they both shared.

Jacinda narrowed her eyes, trying to understand what was going on.

"Stop staring at me, or you'll drill a hole in my head," Mayra said and gave her a gentle nudge and a smile.

"If only I could. That might actually be a useful ability," Jacinda gave in and leaned back in her seat.

Mayra used the tip of her tail to tap on her forehead. "Sounds rather messy to me."

Jacinda chuckled, and when the shuttle took off, they both pressed their noses against the window. "Have you ever left Earth's orbit before?"

"When I was a baby, but I don't remember. You?"

"No, never," Jacinda whispered in awe while they watched Earth become a small blue ball below them.

Mayra sighed happily. "Maybe we should just keep flying."

"And go where?"

"Space," she said, flashing her sharp canines in a small grin.

Jacinda took in all the different ships that orbited the moon. "Sounds… vast."

"Sounds adventurous," Mayra corrected.

"I guess we could go see Lamos." Jacinda could easily picture Mayra doing cartwheels through the jungles of her father's home planet.

"Or Betazed."

Jacinda made a face. "Why?"

"Because it's a beautiful planet."

"How would you know?"

Mayra smirked at her. "I used something called a computer to look up pictures."

"Aren't you clever!"

"I rather am, aren't I?"

They dissolved into giggles that had them holding their stomachs until they arrived at Mars. The _USS Montgomery_ was docked at a space station in orbit, and everybody aboard the shuttle 'oohed' and 'aahed' at the sleek design and gleaming new hull of the pristine starship. They entered it via the shuttle bay where a guide was waiting for them when they stepped off the shuttle.

"Welcome aboard the _USS Montgomery,_ Starfleet's very first Cumberland-class starship. It was designed mainly for deep space exploration and is thus equipped with several state-of-the-art laboratories as well as a new warp drive that will push our current limits of warp speed. If you will please follow me."

"It even smells new, don't you think?" Mayra asked while they followed their guide into a corridor like little ducklings.

"I don't know. What are starships supposed to smell like?" Jacinda wondered.

"Like… its crew is boldly going where no one has gone before?" Mayra suggested.

"Probably more like stale coffee and sweat."

Mayra burst out laughing, which interrupted the constant stream of information their guide was rattling off.

"Do you have a question, young ladies?"

Mayra only kept snickering, but Jacinda didn't want them to be sent back, so she tried to shush her and took a step forward. "Uh, yes, who is going to captain this vessel?"

"That is classified information."

"So… they don't know yet?"

The guide frowned at her. "There are several candidates who are being vetted."

Mayra stopped laughing and suddenly looked very serious. "Are they still accepting applications?"

"You can't apply for captaincy. It's an honor bestowed upon you by Starfleet Command." The guide shook his head and launched into a list of things they were going to see today.

"Why did you ask about the applications?" Jacinda whispered.

Mayra shrugged. "I thought it couldn't hurt if you started early. If we're going to see our father's home worlds, we'll need a ship."

"Oh, so why not take the biggest one available?"

"Exactly."

"…and as the highlight on today's agenda, we'll finish our tour in main engineering," the guide concluded his list.

Jacinda raised a hand. He didn't want to call on her, but he didn't have a choice. "What about the bridge?"

"I'm sorry, but the bridge is off-limits at this point. Now, if you'll come along."

The girls fell back a little and shared a meaningful look. "Jefferies tube?" Jacinda asked.

"Or we could simply take the turbolift," Mayra suggested.

"But according to our friendly guide, those only work with the correct access code at the moment."

Mayra grinned at her. "I'm sure there's a way to rectify that."

Jacinda felt a fresh wave of excitement at the prospect of that particular challenge. Once the rest of their group had rounded a corner, she gave Mayra a nod, and they ran back towards the nearest turbolift.

Its doors opened and closed when they stepped inside, but it didn't move. Without further ado, Mayra used her sharp fingers to pry open a panel next to the control console. It revealed lots of circuitry.

"Have you done this before?" Jacinda wondered.

"Nope."

"Is there a way to do this without destroying a perfectly new starship?"

Mayra stared intently at the system before her. "Sure, we just need to figure out which conduit to disconnect."

"And are any of them speaking to you?" Jacinda asked, watching her in amusement.

"No, but they will," Mara said with certainty.

She studied the conundrum before her a little longer, then stuck a hand inside the panel, but huffed in annoyance when it didn't seem to work the way she had planned. By now, Jacinda was very familiar with that particular feeling. She waved her fingers in front of Mayra's face and said, "My hands are your hands."

Mayra cracked a small smile and let Jacinda take her place, telling her what she needed to do.

With half her arm twisted inside the control panel, Jacinda glanced at her friend. "You're sure we won't plummet all the way to deck 15 if I do this?"

"Very sure," Mayra nodded. "Because this ship only has twelve decks," she added, but Jacinda had already pulled out the conduit.

To their relief, the turbolift stayed exactly where it was, and the computer hummed, awaiting their instructions.

A grin spread across Jacinda's face. "Nicely done, Madam Chief Engineer."

Mayra beamed right back at her. "Waiting for your orders, Captain."

Jacinda took a deep breath, savoring this moment as much as she possibly could, and said, "Bridge."

Miraculously, the turbolift acknowledged her command and started moving upwards. It took only a few seconds until the doors opened and the bridge of the _USS Montgomery_ awaited them.

It gleamed twice as much as the rest of the ship. The different stations were of polished silver, the railings sparkled almost as brightly as the stars, and there was a soft hum of anticipation in the air. And then there was the viewscreen that pointed away from Mars and into space – the rest of the galaxy beckoning. Jacinda felt like stepping into a sanctum.

Until Mayra squealed, somersaulted over the railing, and dropped right into the captain's chair.

For a brief moment, Jacinda was frozen in shock, worried they might be discovered, and appalled that they were daring enough to take something that wasn't theirs to take. Then she burst out laughing, took the long way around the railing, and tried to squeeze herself into the chair next to Mayra.

They fought over control of the chair for a while until their strengths left them and they ended up in a jumble of limbs – with Jacinda's head resting on top of Mayra, whose tail was wrapped around both of them.

"You know, we are on the bridge. We could actually fly away with this ship," Mayra mused.

"Except we don't know how to fly," Jacinda argued. "But yeah, this ship has terrible security."

Mayra chuckled. "Or we're just that good."

Her padd signaled a new incoming message, and Mayra's chuckling stopped. Jacinda could feel her shift to reach for her padd and read the message, and then everything changed.

Sitting in this chair together, it felt like Jacinda was the Earth and Mayra the sun, keeping her firmly in orbit. Suddenly, all that gravity, everything that had held Jacinda in place, seemed to fall away. Swallowed up entirely by a gigantic black hole that took form in the sudden dread emanating from Mayra.

Jacinda stood. "What? What is it?"

Mayra stared at her padd a moment longer before finally looking up. "This morning my dad told me that he's put in a request for a transfer. Working security on Earth isn't demanding enough for him anymore. He only did it, so I could go to school in a stable environment. But he thinks I'm old enough now."

"Old enough for what?" Jacinda asked, wrapping her arms around herself because of a sudden chill she got.

"Old enough to join him somewhere else. He was hoping for a starship, but he just wrote me that his request has been granted and that we're moving to Starbase B13 in the Rhalen sector."

Jacinda tried to recall the details of their star cartography lessons. "The Rhalen sector? But that's in the Beta Quadrant!"

Too far away to live on Earth or even to visit Earth very often. She was definitely getting cold now.

"When are you leaving?"

"Too soon."

They were both quiet for a long time – Jacinda standing in front of the viewscreen, hugging herself, and Mayra looking small in the captain's chair, staring at her feet.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you this morning," she said eventually. "I was hoping his request would be denied."

"I understand. And if this was our last adventure, it was a pretty amazing one," Jacinda replied, looking at the stars. She knew now what Mayra had pushed aside when she'd entered the shuttle. She hadn't tried to keep it from her, she had given them this – one final day of fun, or dreaming, as Jacinda's mother would say, dreaming of a future together.

Mayra hopped off the captain's chair and joined Jacinda next to the viewscreen. "You're not the captain just yet. You don't have to be so melodramatic," she teased her.

Amazed, Jacinda turned to look at her. Mayra was already fighting her way through the shock and the sadness she was feeling, fighting her way out of the black hole. "This isn't our last anything. I can still yell at you to run faster. You'll just have to carry me around with you on your padd."

"You think we can still do as we planned?" Jacinda asked, latching on to the tiny ray of hope Mayra had inspired.

"I think real friends hold on to each other – until the end of the known universe if necessary."

The distinction between reality and illusion wasn't always a simple one when you had to deal with other people's feelings on top of your own. But Jacinda knew without a doubt in her heart that this, this was definitely real. So she smiled. "Starbase B13 is not the end of the universe."

"No, not even close," Mayra agreed, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Jacinda smirked. "Will you ever learn to stand still?"

"Only if you make me."

She didn't say anything, but she held out a hand, and Mayra took it.

No matter how many lightyears would separate them, they wouldn't let go.

It was a simple matter of gravity.

* * *

A/N: Next up is a little time jump, so the girls will finally be old enough to apply to the Academy!


	5. The First Day

**Part II:** **Supernova Burning Bright**

 **5\. The First Day**

She wasn't usually one for stupid grins.

But the huge grin on her face right now probably made her look utterly ridiculous – especially since she was standing in a very modest twin-bedded room that had seen way too many people come and go. It had been stripped of any personality and looked a little sad, and yet it was a dream come true.

Standing in the middle of the room, she was about to compare mattresses when a squeal in the open doorway behind her made her turn around. And not a moment too soon. A five feet and two inches tall burst of energy ran at her, jumped right into her arms, and knocked her off her feet.

"May!" she yelled helplessly before crashing onto one of the beds. "Are you trying to get us killed on our first day?"

May hugged her so hard as if she wanted to make sure that she had squeezed all remaining air from her lungs. "I really, really missed you, Jace!"

"Missed you, too. Can't breathe, though," Jace wheezed.

May laughed and jumped back up onto her feet. "You'll need to toughen up if you want to survive the academy."

"I'm not sure there's a class on dealing with human cannonballs." Jace propped herself up on her elbow to look at her friend.

They had talked only last night, but they hadn't seen each other in person in five years, which was why she would never seriously complain about the overly enthusiastic greeting. They had both grown, although May still wasn't very tall compared to Jace. But she was more beautiful now. Well, with those kitty ears, as Jace liked to call them when she was trying to tease her, May would always look cute to her, but with her thin waist, the elegantly long tail and hair, and her athletic body, she was now decidedly feminine.

Jace hadn't changed all that much. She was a lot taller – and she liked to think also a little more muscular– and she had cut her long, black hair so that it barely reached her chin now. She thought it would be more practical this way for training at the academy.

"No, but there is a class assembly we need to get to," May said, glancing at her padd.

"Since when are you all about punctuality?"

"Since it's a requirement for making it through the academy." May stuck her tongue out at her and lightly danced into the bathroom. "What do you think?" she asked when she came back out.

Jace had closed her eyes for a second, but now that she opened them again, she was left speechless for a minute. May was wearing a Starfleet uniform! It was only a standard cadet uniform without any insignias, but it was a uniform nevertheless. They had actually made it.

"Somebody put them in the bathroom for us, and apparently, they knew who was moving in here, too," May said, turning around to show the hole in her uniform that allowed for her tail. "Somebody made a special uniform for me! Isn't that amazing?"

Technically, somebody had pressed a few buttons on a replicator, but Jace was too happy to point that out. She got up from the bed and took May's hands in hers. "You're the one who's amazing. You and me. We started all this by running away from a school trip, and now our names are on that door!"

May chuckled. "I think we just wore them down by constantly sneaking into places."

"You're right. Should we make a pact? No more breaking in?" Jace asked, and they looked at each other in silent consideration before saying at the same time:

"Nah."

"But I was serious about the punctuality thing, so go dress, Cadet! You're out of uniform," May said, her eyes twinkling, and pushed Jace towards the bathroom.

Despite all the laughter, it had taken a lot of hard work for them to get here. Keeping in touch after May had left for Starbase B13 had been the easy part. They had quickly learned just how many applications the academy got every year. While Starfleet welcomed cadets from anywhere within the Federation, they wanted to make sure that the candidates had what it took to become an officer. So all aspiring cadets had to go through rigorous testing that determined their physicality, intelligence, stamina, and psyche. Naturally, Jace had hated the last one the most.

In those tests, it had been "every man for himself", so Jace and May hadn't been able to help each other. But not only had they both made it in, the academy had also granted their request for rooming together. The entrance exams were nothing compared to what was waiting for them. Jace knew that. Still, she felt like they had earned the right to savor their victory – at least for today.

When she had put on her own cadet uniform, they made their way to the assembly hall. Jace didn't know the exact number of cadets who had been accepted this year, but when she surveyed the many faces around her, she knew that the academy didn't expect all of them to make it. They had accepted all these cadets, fully aware that there would be dropouts.

A knot formed in the pit of Jace's stomach. She wouldn't be one of them and neither would May.

The superintendent of Starfleet Academy, Rear Admiral James Henderson, took the stage to give a long speech on academy tradition, the need for hard work and discipline, and the honor of serving Starfleet. Afterwards, the academy big band played a few upbeat songs to lift their spirits again.

At the end of the assembly, they were divided into groups and each assigned to one of the counselors at the academy. Everybody was to go in and have a face-to-face conversation about their choice in coursework. While there were several classes that were mandatory in the first year, there were also a few electives, and the academy wanted to make sure that cadets didn't spend their time idly, trying to figure out what they wanted to do.

"Now, what do you have to remember when you go in there?" May asked while they filed into the corridor in front of the counselor's offices.

"My name?" Jace quipped.

May hit her with her tail. "No, to be polite!"

"Oh, that."

"Wow! Are you a Lamar? I've never seen one before!"

Jace and May both turned around in surprise to look at the guy who had interrupted them. It was another cadet waiting for his turn with the counselor. He looked human with somewhat messy blond hair and blue eyes, which were probably as big as they could get right now.

"So what? That doesn't make her a museum piece. Stop staring!" Jace snapped at him.

The guy jumped to his feet. "Oh, no, I didn't mean to be rude. I'm a doctor, or I want to be, and her physiology is fascinating!"

"So? She's also not your lab rat," Jace shot back, even though she sensed the truth behind his words. He really wasn't a threat to May. He was just awkward. But she figured she was doing him a favor by being rough on him. He wouldn't survive the academy if he couldn't deal with that.

For now, he blushed from head to toe and mumbled another apology. The counselor called for a "Cadet Jeremy Northwood", and apparently, that was his name because he disappeared quickly.

"That was _not_ polite," May pointed out.

Jace shrugged. "He started it."

"I'm okay with people staring, you know. He was kind of cute."

"No, he wasn't. Come on, let's sit down." Jace turned around and bumped into another cadet with full force, which thanks to her empathic radar never happened to her. Until now, at least. Flustered, she took a step back. "Uh, sorry, I didn't… see you there."

"That's something I don't hear very often," the guy replied in an attempt at self-deprecating humor because he was a rather unusual sight, even here at the academy. His black hair and tall stature looked human enough, but half of his face was covered with metal, including a clearly artificial eye, and one of his hands – the one he had raised to stop their collision – was also made from metal, rather than being a realistic-looking prosthesis.

At least, Jace assumed that he had tried to make a joke at his own expense. She couldn't really tell because she got absolutely nothing from him. It caught her entirely off guard. So much so that she didn't know what else to say.

"Anyway, guess that puts me in the right mood to go talk to the shrinks. See you later." He waved with his human hand and headed down the corridor.

"What was that?" May asked, appearing in front of her with a huge grin on her face. "You almost bite blondie's head off for looking at me, and then you go ahead and stare at the cyborg?"

Jace blinked to refocus on her friend's good-natured ribbing. "I didn't mean to. I just didn't see him."

"Yeah, you said that," May giggled.

"No, I mean, it's like he wasn't really there. He had no feelings whatsoever or rather none that I could sense. He was like an empty shell."

May's amusement turned to curiosity. "Has that ever happened to you before?"

"No."

"Maybe he has a metal brain," she mused, her engineering instincts kicking in. "Who knows what they did to him to attach that eye?"

"Who's staring now, May?" Jace asked, but she had a hard time not looking after him as well – especially once May had gone in to see the counselor and she was sitting by herself, waiting.

Eventually, it was her turn, and when Jace entered the office, she was relieved to see that at least her counselor wasn't Betazoid. She sat down and said, "I don't want to be a counselor."

The man in his early 50s looked up from his padd. "Excuse me?"

Jace could hear May's admonishments in her head and sighed. "Sorry. Hello, my name is Jacinda Runyan, _and_ I don't want to be a counselor."

"Well, that is good because with your people skills that would be mildly catastrophic."

Taken aback by that response, Jace fell silent.

"Good, now that you'll let me talk… I'm Counselor Huyn, and I get the feeling that we'll have lots of fun in the next four years."

Jace cringed, whishing she would have been smart enough to listen to May, which was always the best policy anyway. "I'm sorry for my entrance. I just wanted to make that very clear."

"Oh, you have. But may I ask why you thought that I would want you to become a counselor?"

"Because I'm half Betazoid."

Counselor Huyn nodded slowly. "Not all Betazoids become counselors."

"No, but people still make assumptions," Jace insisted.

"Yes, they usually assume that Betazoids are very pleasant. But I guess there's always an exception to the rule, right?"

Jace was surprised by this guy's mental toughness. It made her want to hide under the table in shame, but unfortunately, that wasn't an option. "Okay, timeout. Can we start over? I know I've screwed this up. My roommate warned me not to, but I've been waiting for this so long, I wanted to make sure I got it right."

"First of all, there are no do-overs at the academy," Counselor Huyn said sternly, but then his expression softened into a smile. "But you immediately owned up to your mistake. That shows a rare capability of self-reflection, and I certainly admire your singular focus. So, what _do_ you want to be?"

"A captain."

Counselor Huyn leaned back. "I thought as much."

"I'm sensing a 'but'."

"Well, I'm sure you're aware that there are no courses at the academy on how to become a captain."

Jace nodded. "I know. I've got to earn it, and I will."

The counselor seemed to mull that over for a while. "I believe you," he said eventually.

"I'm sensing another 'but'," Jace noticed.

"I get a lot of cadets like you in here, young stars full of passion and with only one goal in mind. But do you know what happens when a star burns too hot for too long?"

"It collapses," Jace replied, clenching her hands into fists. "That won't happen to me."

"Good, then I'm here to help."

Feeling a little more subdued than this morning, Jace returned to her room. A smile sprang to her lips when the doors opened for her. May had finished her counseling session before her, and she had been busy. The room was no longer bare. She had unpacked their stuff (meaning that their clothes now lay in a heap on both of their beds) and hung up pictures of starships, distant nebulas, and the two of them.

"What do you think? It symbolizes where we want to go and on which ship and how – together, of course." May pointed to her handiwork and then gave Jace a scrutinizing look. "Don't tell me you botched your session!"

"I did, a little bit," Jace admitted. "But we got to an understanding in the end. How about you?"

"They said it would be an uphill battle to get me to the point where a captain can trust that I'm fast enough to do whatever needs to be done, especially in emergency situations, despite being handicapped. But they couldn't deny that I have the right mind set to become an engineer," May told her.

"Of course not. You've got bigger brains than anyone else in this place. And if I were your captain, I would trust you with my life," Jace said, sitting on her bed.

May beamed at her. "You will always be my true captain, Jace, no matter what happens in the next four years."

"There's only one thing that's going to happen." Jace glanced up at the picture of the new _Enterprise E_. "We're gonna win this."


	6. Red Flag

**A/N: Sorry about the long wait. I'll try to update more regularly from now on. And two new chapters today!**

* * *

 **6\. Red Flag**

"All right, listen up, everyone! I know you're excited to be out here and to remember what breathing fresh air actually feels like. But we're not just here to give you a really good excuse not to study for Astrotheory 101."

"Too bad," Jace whispered when their instructor paused. Everybody just called him Bobby because he was the most easy-going of all academy instructors.

"This is still part of your Tactical Analysis coursework. We're just going to take a break from studying other people's ingenious strategies and give you a chance to develop your own. Anybody have an idea how we're going to do that?"

They stood in a huge forest somewhere in the middle of what had once been known as Yosemite National Park. Everybody was so excited to be outside the academy grounds, like Bobby had said, they wouldn't have cared if he had abandoned them out here. May looked like an addict who was finally reunited with her drug of choice – trees.

"By finding our way back to the academy?" Jeremy suggested.

Bobby shook his head. "This is not Survival Strategies, Northwood. Not that you would get a task as easy as a walk through a sunny forest. Anyway, we're going to play Capture the Flag."

A hush of excitement fell over the group of cadets.

"I assume you all know how it works. Two groups, two flags, the group that captures the other team's flag first wins. Rules: no getting lost in the woods, no deserting, no injuring each other. Use your equipment and, most importantly, your brains on this one. Got it?"

Everybody nodded.

"Then let's split you up into two groups." He pointed at each of them, counting, "One, two, one, two…" Jace quickly grabbed Jeremy and shoved him between May and herself. But when Bobby got to them, he only grinned at her, pointed at May ("one") and then, ignoring Jeremy, at Jace ("two").

She made a face but wasn't dumb enough to argue. May gave her a smile and walked over to her teammates.

Too preoccupied with the idea of competing against her best friend, she missed the beginning of her team discussing strategy. They had already decided that they wouldn't stuck the flag into the ground somewhere and rather give it to someone to keep on his or her person to protect it (because Bobby hadn't specified that the flag had to be immobile). The rest of the team would swarm out to find the opposite team.

"I think Runyan should take the flag."

Jace's head snapped up. "Why me?"

"Because you can sense any approaching enemies from afar and hide or run or whatever. It'll give us an edge!"

"I could also give us that edge by helping you find the others," she protested. She didn't want to be the one to be left behind to guard the stupid flag.

"She's right. She can not only detect where the others are but maybe also what their plan is."

Surprised, Jace looked over her shoulder. It was Devon Serpico, who had sided with her. Jace had long since learned not to stare at his artificial eye or hand anymore, but she hadn't learned not to be constantly surprised. Whatever he did or said, it always blindsided her. She should probably be grateful that he was on her team.

"But she can't sense inanimate objects like flags, and as long as our own flag is protected, we don't lose," Telev, the most annoying Andorian Jace had ever met, insisted.

Unfortunately, the team agreed.

When Bobby sounded the signal to begin, a red flag was shoved into her hand, Devon shrugged a 'sorry' at her, and her teammates all started to spread out.

Peeved that she had missed the chance to lead her team, Jace stuffed the flag into her pocket and sat down. No matter how casually Bobby treated this entire exercise, he was still an academy instructor, and he was definitely watching. They always were. Even though Jace didn't agree with her team's decision, she had to prove herself a team player now.

Sitting on her ass probably wouldn't look good, but she needed her energy elsewhere. She closed her eyes and cleared her mind. There was no instructor watching her, no fear of failing this class, only the forest surrounding her. Any animals in the area had quickly retreated before the sudden onslaught of academy cadets, so once her team members were far enough away, she could sense nothing but the leaves rustling in the wind and the trees standing unmoved by this sudden spectacle. Nothing but peace and quiet.

A mixture of youthful exuberance and overflowing joy lit up the stillness inside her like a wildfire. A smile spread across her face. She could have detected that free, familiar spirit from miles away, and Jace had known that she would come for her first. With her eyes closed, she could easily picture May, setting not one foot on the forest floor but jumping from one tree to the next, surveying the ground beneath her like a hawk – or rather, like a jungle cat.

Jace waited until May's erratic pattern of tree jumping became more focused before her eyes snapped open and she got back on her feet. "Catch me if you can, May," she whispered.

Quietly but steadily, Jace began to move, always in the opposite direction of where May was looking for her. She hoped her teammates weren't just fooling around. This cat and mouse game with May was fun, but Jace knew that she couldn't keep escaping this particularly smart cat forever.

"Help!"

Jace stopped, her concentration broken. She had almost forgotten that she wasn't alone in this forest with May. There were also her teammates as well as the members of the opposing team, and either side could be the one calling for help – or luring someone into a trap by merely pretending to need help.

"Somebody help me!"

Reluctantly, Jace tested the air. There was real fear there and no deceit she could detect, but she also couldn't tell who it was. Of course, that wouldn't matter much if they really needed help…

Two arms wrapped around her neck from behind and knocked her off her feet onto the soft forest floor.

"Gotcha!" May yelled with a huge grin on her face while Jace was still coughing up dirt.

"Doesn't count. I was distracted," Jace protested and tried to shake her off.

May only held on tighter like a leech. "Does count. It's not my fault that you were just standing there, surveying the scenery."

"I did no such thing. I was listening to _that_ ," Jace said when the voice called out for help again. It definitely sounded whiny now.

May fell off her right away. "Is that real?"

"I think so."

They looked at each other, momentarily forgetting that they were on rivaling teams, before setting off to investigate. They reached a small clearing, and Jace snorted with laughter.

It was Jeremy, and he had obviously stepped into some kind of trap. She had no idea if one of the teams had taken the time to set it or if it had already been there, but the aspiring doctor was now dangling in a net a couple of feet above the ground.

"Oh, thank the stars!" he yelled when he saw them. "Can you please get me down?"

Jace folded her arms across her chest. "Technically, you're not on my team."

"Oh, come on, he looks miserable," May argued.

"Yes, please, I don't care about the game anymore. It's… uh… I have a fear of heights…" Jeremy confessed.

"You have a fear of heights, but you want to go up into space?" Jace asked.

Jeremy sighed. "We all have our cross to bear, don't we?"

That much was certainly true, and after a prompting look from May, Jace nodded. "Okay, you try and cut the rope with your fingers. I'll hold on to it, so he won't fall down and land on his butt."

Jace grabbed the rope that held the net up in the air and gave May a nod. Suddenly, her back was set on fire by something that could have only been a shot from a stun gun. The burning spread quickly to numb her entire body, and Jace could only let go of the rope and fall forwards.

"Jace!" May rushed to catch her before she could hit the ground again, but Jace's weight forced her to her knees.

While she was unable to move, Jace could still feel the rest of May's team approach. "What are you doing? Get your hands off her!" May hissed, sounding very much like a feral cat, and Jace could picture her baring her teeth, which made her feel at least a little better.

"Relax! I'm just getting this," somebody answered, and Jace could feel a hand remove the flag from her pocket. "Game over."

"You never said anything about setting a trap!" May protested.

"We couldn't tell you because if you'd known, Runyan would have known as well. Sorry, Navarro."

"That's enough!" Bobby was back. "Team Blue wins," he announced, and apparently, he had brought the rest of Jace's useless team with him because she could hear them curse in disappointment. "Somebody get me a hypospray for Runyan, and get Northwood down from there!"

A cold prick at her neck freed Jace from the stun effect, but she still had a case of vertigo, so she remained sitting on the ground. The newly freed Jeremy joined her on wobbly legs.

"Now, this was an effective but dirty strategy," Bobby addressed all of them. "Team Blue, you decided to deceive two of your own team members and to shoot your enemy in the back. There will always be situations so dire that such tactics are justified, but let's at least strive for the moral high ground in the future. And Runyan and Navarro, while you seemed to have forgotten what kind of game we were playing, you did so by showing compassion, which is what Starfleet is all about. But I urge you to remember that you two are not an island. If you're not on the same team, you have to be able to work with the cadets who are."

It felt to Jace as if this mess couldn't possibly get any worse, but she was proven wrong when Bobby insisted that she and Jeremy get checked out by a doctor, just in case, while he would discuss strategy with the rest of the class.

Disgruntled, Jace sat on a tree stump, waiting for the medical staff to arrive.

"So, is there some room on this island of yours?"

Jace winced visibly when Devon suddenly spoke up next to her. He raised his hands in apology. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. Again."

"It's not your fault. It's… I can't sense you, so you always come out of the dark for me," Jace explained reluctantly. It wasn't as if she had anything else to do.

"Ah, and that's something that doesn't happen to you often?"

"Nope."

Devon nodded slowly. "I always figured they must have messed up my brain pretty good. I guess now I have proof."

Jace looked at him, unsure of what to say. She had no idea if his alluding to what had happened to his eye and face meant that he was okay to talk about it or if he was still in pain. The uncertainty irritated her terribly. All she could do was take a leap of faith. "What happened to you?"

"The weather control system in my colony malfunctioned, like everything going to hell, really, and I got caught in a fire," he explained, and it seemed as if he was willing to talk about it, to a certain extent at least.

"I'm sorry," Jace said automatically, but was really wondering if she should give into her burning curiosity – pun not intended. She felt like she was navigating a minefield while wearing a blindfold. It was strangely exhilarating. "Don't get me wrong, but why not get plastic surgery?"

Devon gave her a wry smile. "I'd love to say that I'm just not that vain. Then again, you probably couldn't tell if I was lying or not, could you?"

"No," Jace had to admit while her breath caught in her throat. "I couldn't."

"Good to know." Devon grinned. "But the truth is that all the colonists who survived were rescued by a species that just wasn't as medically advanced as we are. They did the best they could for me, and I lived. By the time I could have gotten back to Starfleet Medical, removing the metal would have been very risky. Plus, it would have felt a little ungrateful, you know?"

Jace didn't think that anyone could properly imagine the position he had been in. But she could understand having a part of you that you had never asked for and yet had no choice but to keep anyway. So she nodded.

"And I think the look actually works for me, don't you agree?"

Suddenly, his smile seemed very close, and Jace leaned back a little. "Why are you even talking to me, cyborg boy?"

"Why shouldn't I? We're teammates."

"Uh-huh. But the rest of my team blames me for losing the game and is over there listening to Bobby," Jace pointed out.

Devon shrugged. "It's always easy to blame someone else. The rest of the team didn't do shit either. And if they had listened to us in the first place, none of this would have happened."

"Us?" Jace asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Yeah." Devon smiled. "Like I said, if you have room on your team next to Kitty Ears."

"Don't call her that!"

"Sorry, but you did just call me cyborg boy."

Jace looked at him, trying to decipher what he wanted from her, what was happening here. But it seemed as if she had only one way of finding out. "How good are you in Astrotheory?"

"I'm doing okay. Why?"

"If those doctors ever show up to clear me, we could meet up to study together."

"You're not studying with Kitty Ears?" Devon asked.

"She doesn't need to study for Astrotheory 101. She would do it for my sake, but it's just a waste of her time," Jace explained.

Devon laughed. "In that case, I would love to waste my time with you."

Again, Jace couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or truthful. But she chose to believe in the latter, and it made her tingle with excitement.


	7. Distractions

**7\. Distractions**

"On what stardate did Captain Archer make first contact with the Andorians and where?"

Jace was stretched out on her bed, staring hard at the ceiling as if the answers to May's questions could be found there. "Stardate 2161.3 at a Vulcan monastery at Ka'pem."

"Close. It's called P'Jem," May corrected her.

Jace glanced at her friend, who was hanging upside down from their wardrobe because she insisted that she could study Early Starfleet History better that way. "How is that close?"

May shrugged. "You got three letters out of four."

"I doubt Commander V'lor will see it that way." Jace sighed. "Okay, next question."

"What was the name of Captain Archer's dog?"

Jace snorted. "Seriously? They're not going to ask about the freaking dog!"

"Hey, don't blame your hatred for history on the poor dog. I'll have you know that it was a very cute dog," May defended her question.

"You don't even like dogs!"

"And you're stalling."

"Fine. Its name was… Othello."

"Wrong book. It's Porthos."

Jace reached for her pillow and stuffed it in her face.

There was a chime at their door, and since Jace was still drowning her sorrow in her pillow, May called, "Come in!"

The door opened to reveal Devon. He stepped inside their room and barely batted an eye at May's unusual position. "Hey, Kitty Ears. How's it hanging?"

The familiarity behind his joke made Jace realize that she and Devon had been dating long enough for May and Devon to have gotten used to each other's company. Ever since the Capture-the-Flag disaster, Jace and Devon had started a sort of casual thing that was currently on the verge of becoming a little less casual. He walked over to Jace's bed and bent down to kiss her hello.

"What are you doing here?" she asked after sitting up. She and May were both wearing their comfy clothes because she hadn't expected him to show up. "I thought you were studying with your new friends."

Devon sat on the edge of her bed, almost as if he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to be here either. But as always, Jace could only guess by reading his body language. "Actually, they're not my friends just yet."

"What's that supposed to mean? Either they're your friends or not," May said.

"In your world maybe, but they're not normal cadets. They're in a fraternity – _the_ fraternity, to be exact: Alpha Gamma Omega."

Jace rolled her eyes at him. "That name is so dumb." She had heard of the fraternities and sororities at the academy, of course, but she had never cared. "Why would you want to get in with them?"

"Because they provide you with a support system. They not only help you to get through the academy, they also give you access to a network of contacts for the rest of your career. I know you wouldn't need a support system like that because you have Kitty Ears. But not everyone is so lucky."

Jace looked from Devon to May, who shot her a grin. She highly doubted that even an entire army of fraternities could live up to their friendship, but she understood the comparison. And she definitely wanted Devon to have other friends to spend time with, so he had something to do when she was with May.

"Okay, then good luck, I guess."

But Devon neither moved nor said anything.

"What?" Jace asked, suspicious.

"Actually, I came because I need your help with that."

"My help? What can I do? I can't even remember the name of Archer's stupid dog," Jace said, glancing at May. "Arthur?"

"Porthos," she snickered.

"But your Betazoid senses make you a terrific lookout."

That raised several red flags with her at the same time, but she only asked, "A lookout? I don't follow."

Devon sighed. "To get into the fraternity, you have to pass a test. You have to sneak into the superintendent's quarters at night while he's sleeping and steal something, something insignificant that he won't even realize is gone. It's not about what you steal. It's about getting in and out without being discovered. So that's what I need to do tomorrow night."

There was a soft thump when May fell off the wardrobe.

"That was May's way of saying: that sounds like a really great way to get kicked out of the academy," Jace commented.

"I know. Which is why I need you to come with me. You can tell if the superintendent is sleeping peacefully or if he's going to wake up and warn me in time."

Jace stared at him. "Uh, no, still sounds like a dumb idea."

Devon covered her hands with his. She had gotten used to the feeling of his metal fingers, but this time his grip seemed a little desperate. "It's been done every year, and nobody's ever been caught. They don't want you to get in trouble. It's just a silly stunt. And if you help me, it'll be perfectly safe. You can sense if the superintendent is waking up, can't you?"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean there will be enough time to run."

"I trust you," Devon insisted, and even though Jace couldn't read him, she could see in his eyes how much he wanted this. And she realized that she wanted it for him, too. Things were good right now, and she wanted them to stay that way.

"Fine. We'll give it a try," she said and had barely finished when Devon's lips were already on hers.

It started as a 'thank you' kiss, but then became a little too urgent for a normal kiss. At least for a normal kiss with company. While Jace couldn't feel what was going on inside Devon, she could sense everything that May was feeling, which varied from surprise to curiosity and finally disgust.

She quickly pushed him away. "Now get out of here! May and I still need to study."

Devon didn't even dare to protest, probably not wanting to push his luck. "I'll see you tomorrow then. Bye, Kitty Ears."

May didn't respond, and Devon left.

"Sorry about that," Jace muttered.

"Which part? The one with his tongue in your mouth or the one where you agreed to risk your career?" May asked, her voice unusually sharp.

Jace sighed. "It's not that big of a deal. Even if we were to get caught, they'll give us a slap on the wrist or something."

"Or they could decide to use you as a warning for everyone else by kicking you out, which means you're not only risking your career at the academy, you're risking everything. Why would you do that? What do you get out of it?"

"I get him," Jace said simply.

May scoffed. "He's not that special, unless you're really into cyborgs."

"You just don't like him because he calls you Kitty Ears."

"It's not about me. It's about you."

Jace got to her feet. "Exactly. You have no idea how good it feels that I can't sense him. Everything he does comes as a surprise. Usually, when I kiss a guy, I can feel if he likes it or not. If he doesn't, it makes me self-conscious, if he does, that makes it too easy to lose myself in that, to read too much into it. This, with him, is the only way I can have a normal relationship."

She looked at May, begging her to understand.

May seemed torn. "There must be other guys like that."

"Only if you want me to date a Ferengi."

"Well, they have really big…" May began but faltered.

Jace slowly walked towards her. "What? Ears, teeth, pockets…?" She suggested, then quickly bent down to tug on May's tail, making her drop her padd in surprise. "My turn to ask the questions," she said triumphantly after having snatched the device.

May jumped onto her bed. "Fine, but for the record, I still don't like this."

When Jace and Devon were sneaking through the dark corridors of the academy the following night, Jace suddenly liked the whole thing a lot less, too. But it was too late to go back on her word now. Thankfully, the superintendent's quarters were in the East wing of the academy, which was seldom frequented by other cadets, so they reached it without running into anyone else.

"What now?" Jace whispered when they stopped outside the door.

"Override code," Devon mouthed and started entering it into the control panel next to the door. Jace considered asking him how on Earth he had gotten that code, but she figured the less she knew about fraternity business the better.

The doors slid open and even the silent hiss they made sounded too loud to Jace's guilty conscience. Devon looked at her questioningly, wondering if it was safe to enter. Jace carefully reached out for the admiral's mind. She could sense his presence, but he was in a state of perfect ease that could only be achieved by meditation or during the hours of deep sleep. A quick nod to Devon, and they both slipped inside.

Jace had to suppress a whistle. The superintendent's quarters were huge. They were often used to host guests or dignitaries who visited the academy, so they were probably meant to impress. Devon just stood there, rooted to the spot next to her.

"What are you doing?" Jace hissed. "Just grab something and get out of here!"

Devon looked at her as if in a trance. Finally, he blinked. "I have to find something that he won't even miss. If he launches an investigation, we're screwed," he explained quietly.

"Then go look!"

"I am. You better go watch the admiral!"

"I don't have to actually look at him to do that," Jace shot back, but she did move a little closer to the bedroom, just in case. If she hadn't been breaking and entering, it might have been calming to listen so intently to the admiral's sleep. Even so, she almost lost herself in the darkness.

When she turned around again, she couldn't see Devon anymore. What in the name of Pluto was he doing? Evaluating every single possession for its sentimental value?

"Devon?"

There was no answer, no verbal one and of course also no empathic one. Jace strained her eyes to see, but there were only blackish-grey shapes among the shadows, and none of them seemed to move or breathe.

Cursing under her breath, Jace went looking for him. The living room was empty, so was the dining room, and eventually she ended up in the office where the superintendent's working terminal emitted the soft light of the Starfleet emblem, signaling its stand-by.

Something wasn't right.

The longer Jace stared at the familiar emblem, the more she realized that something must be horribly wrong.

Then the power went out.

In a dark and quiet room that shouldn't have been a big deal, and yet, it was impossible to miss. The terminal simply went black, which was never supposed to happen, and the already quiet room became perfectly still because the climate control unit and the replicators also shut down and stopped their soft humming.

Jace's heart leapt into her throat, her thoughts immediately going to the admiral. Since the power outage hadn't made any noise – quite the opposite really –, his sleep hadn't been disturbed. Not yet, anyway.

But Jace had no idea what was going on. Had Devon cut the power? And if so, only to these quarters, or was the entire academy affected? Maybe it wasn't him. Maybe they were under attack, even though she couldn't possibly imagine by whom. Still, somebody was bound to come looking for the superintendent one way or another.

As quickly as possible while also moving as quietly as possible, Jace hurried towards the exit. When the doors opened before she had even reached them, her heart stopped for a moment.

Two green eyes glowed in the dark.

"Damn it to Betazed and back, May, you've got to stop doing that," Jace said, releasing the breath she had been holding.

"What? Rescuing you?" May asked innocently.

Jace frowned. "Rescuing me?"

"Would you like me to explain or would you prefer to run?"

"Uh, running sounds good."

May agreed with an emphatic nod and held out her hand. Jace took it, and they were out of the admiral's quarters and down the next corridor in the blink of an eye. Everything had been plunged into darkness here as well. Not even the emergency lights were on.

"What is going on here?" Jace whispered urgently, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"I had to cut the power," May answered curtly.

Jace almost tripped over her own feet. "You did this?"

"I didn't really have a choice," May replied rather cryptically.

"I don't… Hold on!" Jace stopped.

May perked up her ears and undoubtedly heard what Jace had already detected. Somebody was coming for them – or at least coming in their direction. A slightly panicked look passed between them. They stood right in the middle of dark hallway where they had absolutely no business being in, especially not during a blackout.

"Go back!" Jace mouthed, and they ran back in the direction they had come from. But they turned left at the end of the corridor, which was the wrong way if those approaching officers were headed for the superintendent's quarters. If not, they were in deep shit.

They pressed their backs tightly against the wall and barely even dared to breathe. The only thing Jace did was to keep squeezing May's hand. The officers made their way down the corridor towards them, slowing a bit once they neared its end. Jace was pretty sure that one of them was Commander V'lor, and she seemed rather determined, which had to mean that she was coming for the admiral. Right?

The commander halted at the end of the corridor, almost right next to them, and Jace stopped breathing altogether. V'lor had a flashlight clipped to her wrist and a padd in her hand, and if she were to turn her head a little to the left…

Jace wished that May hadn't come for her. She still didn't know what was going on. Most likely, her head would already be on a spike, but at least, she would be the only one paying for her stupidity.

Right before Jace would have run out of air, Commander V'lor finally turned her back on them and marched down the corridor leading towards the superintendent's quarters. Jace and May didn't dare to revel in their luck.

They ran for it. And this time, they didn't stop until they were safely back inside their room – exactly where they should be at this late hour. While May stepped up to the window as if to look down and check if they'd been followed, Jace leaned against the closed door, trying to catch her breath.

"That was… close."

"Mhm," May agreed, still focused intently on the widow.

"Unless there's a firing squad out there, coming for us, would you care to explain to me what happened?"

May turned around, but she didn't answer right away. Finally, she said, "After you and Devon had left, Jeremy came by. Apparently, his entire family has been in Starfleet, and all men have been members of Alpha Gamma Omega. He's the first one not to join, but he still hears things. For example, that Admiral Henderson has in fact caught on to all those silly knickknacks that go missing from his quarters and that he already suspects who's behind it."

"That didn't stop him from sleeping like a baby tonight," Jace pointed out.

"Nevertheless, Alpha Gamma Omega came up with a plan to make sure that a rival sorority would get blamed for everything and not them."

"How?" Jace asked. When May hesitated, she was forced to face the ugly truth that had already dawned on her back in the admiral's quarters but had taken a backseat to the need for escape. "By setting me up to get caught."

May nodded. "They tipped off Commander V'lor anonymously that if she were to beam directly into the superintendent's quarters tonight without telling anyone, she would catch someone in the act. And if you were the one they'd find, they couldn't very well blame Alpha Gamma Omega anymore, and they wouldn't believe any of your explanations anyway."

"And I would have been the only one there because Devon took off on me," Jace said, as much to herself as to May. "He gave me up, so he could ingratiate himself with the fraternity. And I was dumb enough to oblige. I don't believe this!"

She slid down until she was sitting on the cold floor. Now that she was safe and there was no more need for fear, anger took its place. She just couldn't figure out if she was mad with Devon for betraying her or with herself for falling for it. And worst of all, beneath that anger was something else. Devon hadn't just played her, he had thrown away their relationship like it was nothing. It stung. It stung like hell.

"I'm such an idiot!" she yelled and banged her head against the wall. It didn't help, but it didn't hurt either. Not in comparison anyway.

May pushed herself off the window and crouched in front of her. "Yes, you are."

Jace's eyes snapped back open to look at her. "By all means, don't hold back."

"I would never," May said with a wry grin.

No, she wouldn't, not even to tell a white lie because no matter what you called it, it was still a lie. All her life Jace had wished for ignorance. Tonight, she had finally learned the truth. Ignorance sucked. "Why would I ever think that being with the one guy on the planet who could lie to me like that was a good idea?"

"Because you wanted to be like any other girl in the galaxy?" May suggested.

"Yeah, but why? My father was never around to scare any potential boyfriends half to death, but he gave me the means to keep them honest myself, and all I did was hate on it my entire life."

May's face was split by a grin, a real one.

"What?" Jace asked.

"Took you long enough to figure that one out."

That almost made Jace laugh. "I know. Thanks for being patient with me."

May crawled to the spot next to her and rested her chin on Jace's shoulder. "Wasn't hard. Because even when you're being an idiot, you're still _my_ idiot, and no one has the right to tell you so but me. And for the record, the real idiot in all this is him."

Jace reveled in the emotional support for a moment. Then she asked, "So you cut the power to the entire East wing for an 'I told you so'?"

"I didn't have enough time to come up with a more refined plan," May defended herself.

"Maybe you shouldn't have done anything at all. They will investigate this. What if they find out it was you?" Some of her fear returned. Facing the ruins of whatever she had shared with Devon was one thing, endangering May quite another.

But May scoffed. "Oh, please. That wasn't my first off-the-books operation. And knowing you and me, it won't be my last either."

"Do you think we're doing this Starfleet thing wrong?" Jace wondered.

"Captain Kirk broke all the rules all the time, and people call him a hero. So as long as we don't do anything he wouldn't do, I think we're good."

Jace couldn't help but smile at her friend. "Thank you," she said emphatically. "But it would probably still do me good to keep my head down for a while – no more stunts, no more unnecessary risks, and no more boys."

"Sounds like a plan," May agreed.

"Doesn't mean you have to do the same thing."

May looked up at their lofty decorations. "We're here to shoot for the stars, right?"

"Quite literally," Jace smirked.

"So that's what we're going to do. No distractions."

"No distractions, yes, Ma'am," Jace echoed, and she was determined to live by that creed, starting tomorrow.

Tonight, she settled in to wallow some more.


End file.
